Christmas

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with the elementary students at Lifestone Church, a new church in Weatherford that we have been helping launch.  Normally when I talk with them it is for about three minutes before they watch a twenty minute video skit of the lesson.  This time, however, all I had was an outline of the lesson that was written for a teacher and a co-teacher.  Having never taught or done much public speaking I was concerned about all of the little things.  I wanted the timing and organization to be just right, I wanted the presentation and delivery to be perfect, and most importantly I wanted the message to be delivered in a way that the students understood what I was saying.

I spent most of the day Saturday rewriting the lesson for one teacher, putting together some Christmas music videos from the internet, and doing a power point presentation with all of the bible verses that I wanted to go over.


The message was intended to be about how Christmas is a reminder to tell others about Jesus but for some reason as I was delivering it, the message became about how the story was about belief.

I covered the following verses and I think you may also see what I saw.

• In Luke 1:26-38 and 45-56 God told Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus - She Believed
  
• In Luke 1:39-45 Mary went to see Elizabeth, as soon as Mary walked into the door, her baby leaped in her womb - she believed, 
• the baby in Elizabeths womb was John the Baptist - he believed
• In Matthew 2:3 King Herrod began orchestrating a plan to have Jesus killed - he believed
  
• In Matthew 2 the three wise men believed that Jesus was the savior but more importantly in verse 12 they had a dream that warned them not to tell Herod where Jesus was - they believed
• In Luke 2: 8-20 the Angels told the shepherds in the field -they believed
  

We also talked about how the Shepards in the field believed the angels so much that they went and told everyone they could find that the Savior had been born.

It turns out that Christmas does remind me to tell others about Jesus but it also reminds me of how those people believed.  Can you imagine what you would do if an Angel came up to you?  I Can't.  I also can't imagine walking toward a star because I think that it is taking me toward a baby.  I can't imagine what Joseph thought when he heard that his fiancee was pregnant.  I can't imagine what Joseph's family thought when they realized that he wasn't married when Mary became pregnant.  And even Herod, he was the king over everything and he believed that this baby was a threat to his power so much that he tried to kill him.


The crazy moral of this whole thing is that it is because all of them believed that I was given the opportunity to share the story of Jesus with those students yesterday.